Moon Law
by wtfisaverage
Summary: What happens when an old wolf loves a young girl who loves a farm boy..


Prologue: Given to the Moon 

Gaia walked the squalling child to the river.

Gaia was too old to be this sad. For years, she practiced voodoo and studied the patterns of nature. Where had it gotten her? Eighteen years ago, she'd been run out of town. Forced to leave her young daughter and robbed of her young love. Now, her beautiful daughter was dead and her grandchild…

Her grandchild had been robbed of her promise before it had a chance to flower.

"I did it for her," Charles, Gaia's estranged husband had cried. Gaia had arrived earlier in the night to the small cottage haunted already by loss. Dropping the bag of herbs she'd prepared to help her daughter give birth, Gaia rushed to the bed to see her daughter lifeless next to the swathed screaming ball that was her grandchild.

"They took her," he sobbed over his empty jar, "they hurt her. All because of her beauty. I didn't want that happening to our grand baby. I couldn't let it happen," he said turning away to leave the room. Both Gaia and Charles had grieved over the rape that left their daughter pregnant. Charles was haunted by his inability to protect his child. Her color, her face, her features… so many factors left her defenseless. When Christine pushed her baby out with the last of her strength and the light faded from her eyes, Charles held the newborn. Amber eyes passed down from her great-grandmother stared up at him. From the curve of her cheek to the tiny swaths of hair coiling wetly against her head, Charles could see the promise of her mother's beauty in her. Swallowing thickly, he laid the baby next to her mother. Grabbing a jar of moonshine from the table in the corner, Charles drank fast. Shoulders slumped, he walked across the room to the chest against the wall and retrieved the iron inside. Placing it in the fire, he turned it until heat made it red and hot. Another drink helped him crossed to the bed. A prayer helped him place the iron against the baby's face.

Rushing into the cabin, Gaia picked up the baby. "Lord, no." The baby's face was blistered and darkened by angry burns. Her young flesh smarted and was raised in desperate welts. The child's hurt echoed in her cries. Gaia vowed to deal with Charles later, but first came this child.

It took her some time to get everything she needed, but she was resourceful. She could not lose this moon.

"Go on and cry child. Cry out your pain and we will try to fix it. You lost yo' mama and will never know a dada. You lost your promise and that injustice is too much fo' fate."

Gaia called upon her powers and walked to the full moon reflected in the river. "Hear me, Ami," she said looking up at her celestial friend. "An' hear her motherless cry. Beauty be her name and her legacy. It be her burden. It be her curse. I know you can't heal it, but you can take her under your love."

Robes trailing behind her, Gaia crossed barefoot to the middle of the river where the moon's reflection was most powerful. With the baby hitched on her shoulder, Gaia cut a line down her palm and turning clockwise dropped her blood onto the now rippling circle of the moon's reflection. A circle of light sparked and then glowed around her encasing the moon's reflection and erasing her shadow. Her request would be heard. Gaia whistled low into the night and beseeched the night, "Be ma' voice." The wind answered, twisting and wrapping about her, blowing into her long grey streaked dreads. She reached into her pocket and grabbed her bundle. Undoing the tie, she let her collected herbs and hairs fall into the now howling wind. "Be ma' arms." Calling upon her power and holding the baby, Gaia laid a kiss on the still crying child. "So it be said, mon ami," she said to the waiting moon. Gaia bent at the waist and placed the child in the river. Humming softly, she let the coolness soothe the baby's hurts before gently holding her under the water. Chants and prayers left the old woman's lips as she felt her wind search for the answer. Then in the distance, a lone wolf's cry answered her call. "That will do, Ami" she said. "That will do." The water churned with moon magic fed by the connection between Gaia and fate. The circle glowed as her magic tried to escape its confines. Ever greedy, her magic tried reaching for more, but with the will of her love Gaia kept it contained and focused on her grandchild. Only the river and its underwater occupants giving the circle of light a wide berth felt the pulse. It beat once as nature shifted and accepted a new offering into her fold. Opening her eyes, the old woman swayed as the circle disintegrated and her shadow reappeared. Pulling her bundle from the river, Gaia smiled as a sopping wet wolf cub with amber eyes writhed and nipped at her hands wanting to be closer. Enfolding the cub in her robes and accepting of the wet kisses against her chin, Gaia nodded at her lunar friend. "So it be, Ami. So it be."

* * *

His howl was rusty, Sam thought as he finished the note. Hundreds of years, he'd slept. His cavern keeping him safe tucked deep in the mountains. He'd traveled the world times over, his magicks and his moon kiss allowing him to age with the earth. After all, he was an old beast. Others called it a curse, but he considered it a blessing. He'd been freed to let the wildness inside him take shape.

Searing pain awoke him. The phantom burn across on his cheek jerked him from his slumber. But most disturbing of all was that he felt her. Her pain, her Inner, reaching out for him.

He swam up the mountain. Full of his will and magic, the dirt and stone were like water to him. As he rose, he passed the various bodies of his pack. Generations were buried. His legacy, his children. Their bones feeding him information: history, language, culture. The pack mind in this mountain was strong, geared toward one purpose. Survival. When he rose to his old den, he knew where and when he was, but he did not fully understand why until he caught the scent of the spell. Opening his senses, Sam heard the child's cry echo the cry in his mind. Needing to soothe the infant, he called his returning powers to him.

"I know you can't heal it," he heard the old witch say, "but you can take her under your love." Sam did not know love. He'd never done it or had it in all his years, but he knew magic. Sitting on his haunches, the old wolf bowed his majestic head and added flavoring to the old woman's spell. Merging his mind completely with the child's, Sam called her beast spark, the animal in all humans. Like all animals, this beast survived and endured. He shaped the animal in her: her limbs would be long and strong, her fur thick, her teeth and claws sharp, her senses acute. With a sharp bite of his foreleg, Sam sealed himself to her: "Blood of my blood," he thought to the young one, "flesh of my flesh. You are pack, girl. Never alone and never without. I troth to thee."


End file.
